Small Steps
by ncfan
Summary: The first steps to gaining trust.
1. Chapter One

This is the second installment in my series of oneshots and short stories, _The Care and Feeding of Partly Human Children. _

I own nothing.

* * *

Amon Ereb was a small town on a hill, constructed with rough gray rock and walled by the same. The town was battered by wind, as grim as the earth about it and the mountains rising to its west, and eerily silent. That was what stood out most about it to Elrond, on the first day when he and his brother were brought into the town. Maglor had leaned over them and murmured that he and Maedhros, who rode at the head of the bedraggled party and seemed to be doing his best not to listen, had once lived in a place called Himring. Himring was much like Amon Ereb, but it was located much further north, was much bigger, and was since lost to them.

_Was it this empty too? _Elrond had wondered numbly, but forbore to say aloud—for all that Maglor had thus far been kind to him and Elros, Elrond had also the image of corpses and blood fixed firmly in his mind and did not trust this nér, gentle though he seemed, not to turn on them. Even if Elros did.

That was the rub, though. Amon Ereb was a grim, rough-hewn little town almost totally devoid of inhabitants. The vast majority of the gray stone houses, great and small, were dark at the windows and empty. Those who remained greeted their Lords warmly enough, but it seemed to Elrond that they looked relieved that the only protectors left to them (for there were no soldiers defending the town when they entered) had returned alive. Being in Amon Ereb felt like teetering on the edge of the world.

But it was where he and Elros were living now. Elros did not seem so bothered by the turn of events that had led to them living in Amon Ereb with the surviving sons of Fëanor, but maybe Elros was better at hiding disquiet behind smiles and good cheer than was Elrond. Somehow though, Elrond doubted that that was the truth of it. Elros had never been good at keeping his feelings off his face. More likely, he'd done all his crying on the way here and could not weep any more.

Himself, Elrond had not wept. Sniffled a bit in the dark when no one else could hear him, but he'd not wept. Weeping would leave him vulnerable, weeping would blind and deafen him, even if only for a few moments, so he did not, and would not. It was not worth the risk. He felt as though a great beast was growing beneath his ribs, threatening to reach forth and devour him at any moment, but he did not weep.

He and Elros wandered the halls of the fortress of Amon Ereb; Elrond would not let him from his sight, not even for a moment, and though Elros complained of always having his hand tugged on and that Elrond wouldn't leave him alone, you could always find the twin sons of Elwing together.

Amon Ereb was a fortress town, a crude, lonely place after the Havens of Sirion. Sirion had been a massive city, home to thousands, though it had not had as many of its people as it once did, thanks to war. Sirion had gleamed bright white, vibrant and beautiful, full of hustle and bustle. The air smelled of salt from the sea lapping at its boundaries, perfumes in the shops, pastries in the bakeries, flowers growing in shaded courtyards and trailing up smooth plastered walls. And what's more, Mama was there. That made Sirion a home in such a way that Amon Ereb could never be.

The wind howled over the rooftops and the battlements, and Elrond thought of a home he wasn't allowed to see, white and shimmering, and seeming more real than the stones around him.

-0-0-0-

There were no other children in Amon Ereb. Maglor had never noticed that before, but then, there were and still are a lot of things he did his best not to notice, so perhaps he could just categorize that under the long list of things he did not notice. The absence of children laughing in the fortress and the town around it was covered up by the howling of the wind. But suddenly it became significantly more important in the wake of the fact that he'd brought two children here with him from Sirion, and that they were the only children in the entire town.

Maedhros had other concerns, greater than his, so Maglor had taken up the task of making sure that Elros and Elrond were properly looked after. That was when it had occurred to him that there were no other children in the town, when he'd tried to procure clean, dry clothing and shoes for them and had only found it among the belongings left behind by Elves who had since departed from their service or had been killed. There were no tailors left in Amon Ereb, and no cobblers, he also noticed—he'd have to send inquiries into the Laiquendi settlements in Ossiriand. _Though I have no idea how we'll pay them, _he admitted ruefully to himself.

Children. There were children here again. That thought made Maglor oddly giddy for reasons he didn't quite understand, though the knowledge of how he'd gotten them did something to puncture that feeling and root his feet more firmly to the ground. The nervous looks Elrond shot him still didn't help, though Maglor could not find it in himself to blame him. _For why should he not be nervous? I am nervous of myself; why should he not see that?_

Bitter thoughts easily turned to bitter words, though this night at least Maglor was able to keep them off his tongue. So far.

"Are you sure that's wise?"

Maglor turned his gaze away from the darkened window to look at his brother, who was still sitting at the table but no longer thumbing absently through a book as he had been, but looking at him with brow furrowed, wearing the sort of expression that Maglor knew well—Maedhros, unable to decide whether he should be annoyed or worried. "Am I sure what's wise?" Maglor asked quietly, feigning at being unsure of what Maedhros spoke.

That effort fell through almost immediately; though Maedhros's worry did not vanish from his face, his irritation visibly rose. "You know exactly what I mean, Makalaurë. I have to question the wisdom of your decision to put Elwing's boys down to sleep in the Ambarussa's old beds."

The words hit him like a heavy stone thrown at his chest, and Maglor looked down at the ground, bracing his hands against the windowsill. Maedhros had just found out about that today, and already he was raising doubts. "They were the closest available," he defended himself, not meeting his brother's gaze. "There was nothing else I could do. The boys had been raised like princes; how do you explain to two children of that age and raised thusly that they now have to sleep in thin military cots?"

Part of it had been, in all honesty, that Maglor wanted to spare himself the trouble of having to explain to Elrond and Elros why they were having to sleep in cots, and the beds Amrod and Amras slept in when they were alive happened to be handy. It might have been better simply to sell them—the beds, not the boys—or chop the beds up for use as firewood come winter, but Maglor could not stand to do so to his late brothers' possessions. That they were dead did not seem entirely real; it still seemed as though Amrod and Amras would come barging back in through the front doors of the fortress at any moment, fresh from the hunt, and then they'd want to know what these two little boys were doing in their beds. (Maedhros had offered their dead brothers' surviving men release from service, and most of them had taken it—what would the Ambarussa say if they could know of that?) It had seemed the same after the assault on Menegroth and the loss of those who had been close to him then. Maglor could only hope that it would fade soon. The numbness was worse than grief.

The other part of it had been… Maglor could not rightly say what it had been, but he'd immediately put the thought of the twins sleeping in cots brought up from the mostly-empty barracks away as being untenable. He'd not rejected the idea from the standpoint of Elrond and Elros being hostages of high rank who warranted better treatment, either—as Maedhros had pointed out on the way here, with Elwing dead and the Silmaril she'd held at the bottom of the sea, her twin sons might be hostages of high rank, but they were not valuable. He wasn't sure where the thought had come from.

"I'm concerned about you blurring the lines between past and present and never-was and never-will-be."

Blood roared in Maglor's ears at that, quick and hot and sudden, and he took a few deep breaths, wondering exactly what it had been that had stoked the flames of his temper into life. _Calm yourself; he meant nothing by it but to express worry, and nothing more than that. Calm yourself or you won't be able to say anything coherent. _He took a few more deep breaths and though himself calm, but apparently not, for when Maglor opened his mouth to reassure Maedhros that he wasn't confused in any way, it came out as "You're one to talk."

Disturbing enough that was, but more disturbing was that Maedhros's only reply was to say, running his hand over the open pages of his book, "Perhaps."

-0-0-0-

"I like them."

Spring was lengthening and the weather warming, but it was still cold at night and Elrond and his brother felt more comfortable crawling under the blankets of the same bed than asking for firewood for the hearth. It was marginally easier to get warm that way, but that thin, childish voice almost made Elrond wish that he hadn't let Elros crawl under the covers with him. "They took us from Mama," Elrond retorted, glaring at him in the darkness. _And killed our people, _he added mentally. "She must be worried about us."

Elros shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "They seem nice. Especially Maglor." Elrond didn't ignore the omission of Maedhros from that statement—if there was one thing they agreed on concerning their kidnappers, it was that Maedhros had not made a good first impression and did not need to be approached unnecessarily. "And Mama doesn't always get worried about us."

No, she didn't, though Elrond didn't like to be reminded of that. Elwing had her Silmaril, always about her throat whether visible to the eye or hidden beneath a gauzy scarf. When not occupied with her duties, Elwing was absorbed with the sight and facets of her jewel, staring into it for hours at a time. Her sons could be standing at her side, pleading into her ears, and she wouldn't hear them. They could be absent from a meal, or at bedtime or when it was time to take a bath, and she wouldn't notice. It was always their nurse Glessil, or one of the members of the court such as Thranduil or Erestor who went looking for and found them in the end, not Elwing. Elrond preferred to remember the times when she would smile at them and spend time with them. He preferred to remember the smell of her perfume and her scented scarves, and the sea-salt caught in her hair beneath that, than to remember how enraptured she was with that jewel.

"If anybody's worried about us," Elros went on, with a tone of forced cheer in his voice that even Elrond, young as he was, could recognize—but then, he'd known Elros for all of their short lives, so perhaps that accounted for it, "it's probably Glessil."

"_Glessil's _probably dead," Elrond snapped in return, mind's eye suddenly flooded with the images of corpses huddled against the walls of their home as though living and sleeping, but their bodies leaked blood and their eyes were open and empty.

Elros whimpered at that, and Elrond winced. "Sorry," he whispered. In the darkness, he stared into the eyes of a face that was nearly identical to his own, stared into eyes the same shade of dark gray as his own. Elros's eyes must have been the mirror image of his own, unsure of himself and homesick, missing their mother and nurse and everyone they'd known in Sirion, missing Sirion itself.

After a while, Elros fell asleep, sleeping more deeply than Elrond could manage, but Elrond did not, and he was awake to hear the creak of their door being opened.

_What? _Elrond's heart pounded in his chest as the door to their bedchamber creaked slightly open, a narrow sliver of golden light from the hall falling over their bed, mostly blocked by someone standing in front of it. Elrond's eyes flicked momentarily towards the door, and he realized that it was Maglor. Checking to see if they were asleep, or something else. Mercifully, he took the twins to both be sleeping, and left.

Elrond rolled over, turning his gaze towards the window, and willed himself to sleep, dreaming of waves crashing against sharp rocks and air full of the smell of salt.

* * *

Makalaurë—Maglor  
Ambarussa—Amrod and Amras

Nér—man (plural: neri)  
Laiquendi—'Green-Elves' (singular: Laiquendë)


	2. Chapter Two

There was a rhythm to life in Amon Ereb, and it centered around mealtimes. Elrond and Elros were roused an hour before breakfast, either by Maglor or by one of the few servants left to the fortress. An hour after breakfast, the soldiers would come out of the barracks and perform their morning drills for two hours, directed either by Maedhros or more commonly by the sergeant-at-arms, who was also present at the meals and at any meetings that the two sons of Fëanor were engaged in. Dinner was served at high noon exactly every day; an hour after dinner the soldiers would come be assembled again for their afternoon drills, which lasted an hour and were slightly more likely to be directed by Maedhros, but not by much. Supper was served eight hours after noon, by which time Elrond and Elros both were quite hungry and welcomed it. They were usually put down to bed somewhere between one and two hours after supper had finished.

Breakfast was much the same as it ever was. There were three tables in the great hall of the fortress of Amon Ereb, one facing the doors on the opposite side of the room, and two set up parallel to each other, and set lower than the high table. At the high table, Elrond and his brother sat to Maglor's left when they ate. The chair to Maglor's right, which Elrond could only suppose belonged to Maedhros, was empty, as it ever was at every meal they took; Maedhros never ate with them. The two lower tables were mostly empty as well. The sergeant-at-arms sat at the table on the right, and the servants sat at the table on the left, but unless there was some pressing need for speech, no one ever spoke.

Elrond never felt properly full after eating here. In Sirion, there was always more than enough food for everyone who ate in the great hall of the palace (though he remembered that Elwing invariably ate little), and the food was always fresh and full of flavor. Here, not so much. The portions put on his plate were paltry and aside from the bread, everything, from meat to fruit to vegetable, had clearly been preserved, and long ago. It was small consolation to see that Maglor was eating the same food that they were, and that there was little more food on his plate than there was on theirs. He was still hungry after every meal, and the poor food given to him to eat made him ache for home even more.

Despite his the constant gnawing hunger in his gut, mealtimes were probably Elrond's least favorite time of the day, and the reason for that was the Elf sitting to his immediate right.

Probably the one who spoke the most and was most likely to break the implicit rule on silence in the great hall was Maglor. Aside from the arguably necessary conversations he held with the sergeant-at-arms, Maglor would probe the twins for information far more closely than Elrond liked. He would ask them how they'd slept, how they were, if they liked the food they were eating or not, matters such as that. Elros would answer eagerly, completely oblivious of the danger. Elrond would answer Maglor more reticently, just enough to be polite, and no more than that. Elrond did not particularly want to speak with Maglor at all, but if he spoke too much, or worse yet, too little, he risked antagonizing him.

The only good thing about the small portions meted out at mealtimes was that it meant that the meals were soon over, and Elrond and Elros were left to their own devices, away from Maglor's pale, keen eyes. To Elrond, it was a relief.

-0-0-0-

It was an hour before dinnertime.

For all that Maglor's scrutiny bothered Elrond immensely, it would be a relief to finally have something to eat again, even if there was only four hours between breakfast and dinner. He felt as though there was a mouth full of teeth gnawing a hole through his stomach. At this point, he'd be willing to put up with Maglor's questions if it meant he could eat something. But as it stood, there was still an hour to go before someone would come looking for them, to take them down to the great hall to eat.

"I wonder where Maedhros is," Elros wondered aloud curiously as they walked down the cool stone halls of Amon Ereb, wincing at bright shafts of sunlight pouring in through the narrow arrow slits and wider mullioned arched windows in-between. The halls were silent; even the telltale footsteps of servants were absent here.

Elrond stopped to stare at a lintel over a doorway they'd passed in front of. Carved into the lintel was a simple star with eight rays spreading outwards, the star of Fëanor. He'd noticed that carved into the lintel of every room in this fortress, seen it carved into the lintel over the main entrance into the fortress itself, and over the gates into the town. Sometimes, in Sirion, there would be symbols carved into the doorways of Edain houses, or little trinkets hanging from the windows. When he'd asked an Adan why they were there, the Man had said to him that they were meant to ward off misfortune. Has the star of Fëanor been carved into all the lintels here for the same purpose? "I don't know," he finally answered his brother. Maedhros hadn't emerged to direct the soldiers in their drills today, and as ever, he'd not come down to the great hall for breakfast. "I haven't seen him."

It took a fair amount of effort to bite back a warning that Elros shouldn't go seeking Maedhros out. Elrond was sure Elros already knew better than to do that, and snapping at Elros wasn't getting him anywhere; it was only hurting Elros and making him shoot those hurt, indignant, almost accusatory looks that way. One of Papa's Adan friends had once said that Elros had never met a stranger; Elrond wasn't sure what that phrase meant, though he got the impression that it was meant to refer to Elros being friendly with most people that he met. Elros saw no danger in either Maglor or Maedhros, but Elrond could see it still.

He had the image in his mind of Elros dying. One of their kidnappers had finally run dry of patience in this scenario, for Elrond knew that Elros had more than enough capability to make even the most patient person grow short-tempered. They had slain Elros, or left him out to die in the wilderness. And where was Elrond?

Elrond did not know where he was, in such a scenario. He almost hoped that he would be with Elros. The idea of being alone without him was far worse.

That was it. They'd been together all their lives; Elros had come into the world only minutes after Elrond had (Five and a half minutes, Glessil had assured them). They had always been together, and Elros was the one person Elrond could count on to always be there, and always be acting normally, for while Mama was always _present _in Sirion, it could not be said that she was always _there_.

Papa was on a ship somewhere. Papa was trying to find the Undying Lands. That was what Mama told them. They had met them twice, Elwing had told her sons, when they were six months old and a couple of years after that. But while Elrond had seen his father before, the face of Eärendil was faded and uncertain to him. He barely remembered what his father looked like; the only feature he was sure of was Eärendil's bright golden hair, and that was only because most of the others around him were dark- or silver-haired. Papa was somewhere else, and Elrond did not know him well enough to believe in him. He might have thought that Papa would come find them and rescue them; maybe he would bring them to live with him on his ship. But that was just it. Papa was on a ship somewhere in the sea, trying to find the Undying Lands. How would he ever hear that his sons had been taken from their mother and their home?

If Elrond had hope of anyone coming for him and Elros, it was Mama. Elwing had been in Sirion the day the Kinslayers had come, and surely she would know of what had happened to her boys. Mama was the Queen of the Doriathrin people, if she would ever take up the title—that was what Elrond had heard said of her, that she was "Queen in exile." If she was supposed to be "Queen in exile", could she not muster a host to retrieve her sons from their captivity? Elwing had been much enamored of the Silmaril, it was true, but even she did not stare into its depths every hour of the day and night. She would notice that her sons were gone, and would want them back.

_But he had said that she was gone, _a small voice sounded in the back of his head.

Yes, Maglor had said that, the day he and Maedhros had stolen them away from their home. He'd said that Elwing was "gone", and that neither she nor her jewel would be found in Sirion. Had she left them, then?

_He could be lying. He could have just said that. _When it occurred to Elrond that he didn't know why Maglor would say something like that just to lie, when he and his brother had come to Sirion _seeking _the Silmaril in the first place, he shook his head violently. _That's it. That has to be it. Mama wouldn't leave us. Wouldn't she?_

Elrond turned a corner in his wanderings, and saw through the mullioned window directly in front of him that the Sun was high in the sky. It was nearly noon, nearly time for dinner. He sighed, both in relief for the respite he would soon have from his angrily grumbling stomach, and for the realization that as much as he didn't want to be in the company of anyone but his brother, they needed to start back down towards the great hall so they wouldn't be late for lunch.

"Come on, we'd better go back…"

Elrond turned around to face his brother, but found himself looking at nothing but empty air and an empty hall.

* * *

Edain—Men (Singular: Adan) (Sindarin); referring especially to the three Houses of the Edain


	3. Chapter Three

Elrond was so caught up in his thoughts, whatever they might be, that it was easy for Elros to slip away from him. It was often this way, Elros had found, either in Sirion or here in Amon Ereb. Elrond was easily distracted with contemplations of some sort, and did not notice when Elros wandered away from him. But honestly, he'd been so much more vigilant than usual for all the time that they'd been here that Elros was amazed that he was able to get away at all.

Elros was the younger twin. This defined him, or it defined much of him and what he did. Though he was the more outspoken, the more boisterous, the more impulsive, Elros was usually content to follow Elrond's lead as regards to, well, just about everything. Elrond was older than him, if only be a few minutes, and he got worried a lot.

But today was different.

They were not home anymore. Sirion was long-gone behind them, and now they had been taken to another town far away from the sea, which Elros already found himself missing terribly. Amon Ereb was not Sirion. Amon Ereb was a gray, desolate, dreary place perched atop a hill, where there was nearly no one around and absolutely nothing to do. Elros knew the truth of his situation, though he supposed that Elrond might think that he'd forgotten. He'd been taken from his home, and wasn't free to go back. Maglor and Maedhros held them here, and would not let them go. They were hostages, not simply children anymore, and Elros found that the name 'hostage' suited him ill.

All the same, though, Elros found that their kidnappers weren't really a bad sort. Well, he found that Maglor wasn't a bad sort, kindly as he was; he'd not seen enough of Maedhros to be able to pass judgment on him. The most he had seen of Maedhros was looking down out of a window and occasionally catching sight of him directing the soldiers in their drills, the weak Sun drifting out from behind leaden clouds and shining on his long, bright copper-colored hair. That was the point to this, he supposed.

Elros did not know if there would be anyone coming for him and Elrond; he couldn't answer that question one way or another. But he did know that he and his brother were going to be here for a long time, whether or not anyone came to take them home. Elros didn't want trouble with their "caretakers." Elrond might have thought it better not to open up to either of the two brothers, but Elros was ultimately a friendly soul—he wasn't unaware of the potential danger here, but he thought it better to make friends with the two brothers, rather than hold himself aloof.

And he _was _very curious.

Maglor he'd already befriended, and though Maedhros, what little Elros had seen of him, he found deeply daunting, would it not be best to try to do the same with him?

So Elros wandered up and down the halls, checking doors he'd not been through before. All too often he'd find that one of the heavy doors was locked, and would glare up at its wooden grains; Elros had no love for locked doors (They reminded him too much of that last day in Sirion, when all too few of the doors he and his brother tried would consent to harbor them).

Amon Ereb had three floors, and he'd reached the top one, where he and his brother slept. Elros bypassed his and Elrond's shared bedchamber door, and began peering through the doors on each floor. He came to the last door on a particular corridor. Finding it unlocked, Elros pushed it open, and looked inside.

There he was.

-0-0-0-

It was five past noon.

Since before the days of Rána and Vása it had been considered sound practice amongst the House of Fëanor not to start a meal until everyone who was expected at the table arrived. Of course, knowing the House of Fëanor, this meant that all too often the food was stone-cold by the time, which would invariably send Curufin, who was very particular about what temperature his food should be when he ate it, into a silent, glaring mood. Fëanor barely noticed it; rarely did he notice things like the fact that the stew he was eating tasted as though it had spent a year in the snow when he was in the midst of creative zeal. However, like Curufin, Maglor could count himself as one of the members of the family who noticed how hot and cold his food was (unless he was in one of his own creative spates, in which case he wouldn't notice if he was being fed shoe leather, but frankly he'd not gotten in one of those moods since before he left Aman) so he preferred for everyone to be on time.

The rule of Amon Ereb was that no one could start eating until everyone who sat at the high table was present. Maedhros didn't take his meals there. He hadn't taken his meals in public in a _very _long time, didn't even like for his brothers to be around when he ate. Since the disastrous assault on Menegroth and what—and who—had been lost there, Maglor had gotten used to eating alone, as much as he didn't like it.

However, of late, there had been two others eating with him. And their chairs were quite glaringly empty.

The others in the great hall, the sergeant-at-arms Sartandil and the servants who took their meal at this time in the great hall, were all looking up at Maglor, unsure of how to proceed. Maglor sighed, and stood. As he swept from the great hall, the light from the clerestory windows falling on his back, he called back, "Go on and eat." They did not need to be told twice.

Maglor could well remember the days of his youth, when his younger brothers wouldn't turn up for a meal, or when _he _wouldn't turn up for a meal (Maedhros could generally be counted on to show up for meals on time). Under such circumstances, it fell to those who _were _present at the table to go looking for the missing brothers.

Maglor would usually be found in his music room, so deeply absorbed in his harp-playing that he had absolutely no idea what time it was or how long it was that he'd been there. Curufin could be found in Fëanor's forge, looking over the tools with intense interest. Celegorm and the Ambarussa could be found in one of the gardens of the wild, untended patches of land on the estate. Caranthir would turn up in the library, or somewhere else he could find peace and quiet solitude.

Elrond and Elros hadn't been here for very long. It was easy to suppose that they'd gotten lost somewhere in the fortress, or that, if dinner was held at a different time in the palace in Sirion, they weren't accustomed to thinking of noon as dinnertime.

_Or perhaps they simply didn't wish to come down, _he admitted reluctantly to himself.

It wasn't unreasonable to suppose that the twins simply didn't want to have to come down and eat with him, and face the scrutiny of their kidnapper and his servants. Maglor took a heavy breath at the thought, pausing in the hallway. His fingers rose to his forehead as though trying to ward off a headache. _They still need to eat, _he told himself, trying to muster an ounce of determination. _I'll find them and bring them back down._

So began the search. Maglor combed the first floor up and down, and found no one who could have been either of the twins—though somehow he doubted he'd find them separate from one another. _They can't have gone far; the guardsmen have their orders not to let them out of the fortress by themselves. So where are they?_

The first floor was empty of the twins of Sirion, and Maglor headed up the stairs, starting to feel a cold curl of worry in his stomach.

That cold curl turned to a lick of cold flame when he heard muffled sobbing from somewhere down the hall.

"Elros? Elrond?" Maglor followed that piteous whimpering, turning down the bend in the hall, barely noticing how his pace had picked up until he was nearly running. His heart pounded hard and fast in his chest; was one of them hurt?

He found Elrond huddled in a shadowy corner, shaking, knees curled up to his chest, his face hidden. Maglor sank to his knees beside him, resisting the urge to pull the child into his arms. Elros didn't mind that, but this wasn't Elros. Elrond would not be held, not by him. He hesitated, wondering what exactly he should say. _How do I—_

"Where's Elros?!"

Maglor had hesitated, but Elrond did not. His head snapped up as he asked the near-hysterical question. The boy's eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks wet. Maglor's heart seized, and it took most of his self-control not to draw the child onto his lap, despite knowing how likely Elrond was to balk if he tried that. As it stood, he had to say something to him. "I don't know," Maglor answered gently. "Did you lose him?"

Elrond nodded, lip wobbling and eyes filling with tears again. _Oh, Elrond._ At that point, Maglor decided to just throw caution to the winds and pulled Elrond on to his lap. The child squeaked and stiffened, looking as though he'd like nothing better than to pull away and run in the opposite direction; that hurt, frankly, even though it ought to have been no surprise. "Elros…"

"…is somewhere here in the fortress," Maglor told him, in a voice that he hoped would sound soothing. "You and your brother are the only children in the town, Elrond. The guards know not to let either of you wander about in the town on your own. Elros is still here, and we will find him, but you must calm down first."

For a moment, Elrond looked as though he would still try to run away. His mouth twisted ambivalently, and he didn't meet Maglor's gaze. But then, he slumped against the nér's chest, drawing in a few deep, shuddering breaths. He sniffled a bit, and Maglor was irresistibly reminded of Caranthir as a child, utterly exhausted after working himself up into a fit. A lopsided, slightly shaky smile stole over Maglor's face, and he rubbed Elrond's shoulder. "Are you always so concerned over where your brother is?"

The child shrugged, small fingers clutching at the front of Maglor's gray robes. "Have to keep him safe," Elrond muttered, swollen eyes half-shut.

Maglor flinched.

Elrond's fears were justified, he told himself, and completely rational. He and his brother had been kidnapped from a city whose streets were flowing red with blood, blood shed by the ones who had kidnapped them. That was all that kept him from snapping that there was no reason for Elrond to be so worried over his brother's safety, reminding himself that Elrond had _every _reason to be worried in his young, troubled mind.

Maedhros had suggested that he was losing track of past and present. Maglor suspected that what he'd suggested next, that he was also losing track of what had never been and what never would be, was far more apt. He really was starting to confuse things. "You are completely safe, little one. You and your brother both. There is nothing here that will harm you, or that I will ever let harm you," he said.

And found that he meant it.

Perhaps he heard the sincerity in his voice, because Elrond looked up at him with wide, red-rimmed eyes. He swallowed, his small pink tongue flicking over his lips. Then, he asked, in a stammering voice, "Maglor… Back home, you said our Mama had gone?"

_Oh, how I'd hoped that neither of them would ask me about that. _Slowly, Maglor nodded. "Yes, she's…" _Dead, _he nearly said, before biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood; the copper taste flooded his mouth, and a faint pitch of nausea rose in his stomach. One day… One day, he would have to tell Elwing's twins of what had become of her, and what he'd had to do with it. But he couldn't do it. Not today. He couldn't look at Elrond and tell him that his mother had chosen to take her own life and keep the Silmaril, rather than give it to him and stay with her children. That the Silmaril had consumed her as it had consumed so many others before her, and that she loved it over her two boys. "Yes, your Mama is gone," he croaked, and hoped that the fact that it was only a half-lie meant that Elrond would be more likely to forgive the day he found out. "She left."

Elrond's face closed up again, and he pressed his cheek against Maglor's chest. Still, he did not seem entirely comfortable, and Maglor got the strong impression that Elrond was allowing him to hold him, rather than actually wanting it, but it was something. He was breathing through his nose, a sharp, whistling noise, and he was silent apart from that for a long time.

Maglor wished he could know what Elrond was thinking. There was a core of sorrow there, cold and dark and deep, there had to be. It was there, and he could not reach it, could not touch it, could not even see it.

"You said something to Elros, on the way here."

At the sounding of that small voice, Maglor looked down, startled. Elrond was staring off at some point down the hall, chin tucking into his neck. He sounded exhausted, though it was no physical exhaustion that he felt. "You said you don't sing much anymore. Why?"

"Ah… I… I've simply found that my heart's not in it as it used to be."

Elrond stared up at him at that, surprised. "Why?"

A faint, faintly rueful laugh escaped Maglor's lips. "I… I really don't know, Elrond." That was a lie; he knew very well why he'd had no enthusiasm for singing, not since before he left Valinor. "I suppose there's just been nothing interesting to sing about." Another lie. "The closest I've come to wanting to write a song was when that dragon came through my lands—"

"You've seen a dragon?!" Elrond asked, suddenly full of excitement, eyes shining.

It hadn't been terribly exciting for him when Glaurung had laid waste to his lands, so many years ago—terrifying would be a better word for how it had made Maglor feel. But seeing Elrond shed his worry outweighed his dark memories of the day his home in Beleriand, the only place that had ever truly felt like home, and not his brother's home that he was merely staying in, was enough to lighten him a little bit. "Yes, it was a decidedly harrowing experience. I barely got out without being scorched on my horse, and Ilmanis will tell you…" His voice died on his lips.

Elrond looked up at him uncertainly, brow furrowing. "Maglor?"

Maglor smiled weakly down at his little charge. "Nothing, Elrond. I just found myself talking about someone whom I sometimes forget is gone." He set Elrond on his feet. "Now, let's go find your brother."

-0-0-0-

The door was unlocked, and Elros peered inside. His heart caught in his throat at what he saw.

This room was not a bedchamber; there was no bed, after all, nor a wardrobe or anything that would be considered a feature of a bedchamber. It was a relatively small room, all things considered. There were two large, mullioned arched windows on the opposite wall from the door, letting in light that was no longer overcast, but dazzling bright out of a dazzling blue sky. Almost as dazzling as sunlight reflecting on seawater. There was a desk pressed against one of the other walls, a shelf stuffed full of scrolls on the other, and in the center of the room was a table.

And at that table sat an Elf.

It must have been time for dinner, because a plate sat on the table in front of Maedhros, and an earthenware goblet at his left hand side. Elros stared at him, suddenly not as sure about trying to make friends as he was before. _Should I go back down for dinner? Elrond'll be looking for me; so will Maglor._

He hesitated a moment too long, for Maedhros started to speak. "What is it, Kano?"

Elros said nothing, frozen in the doorway, and Maedhros, when met with silence, looked up. Their eyes met, and for a long moment, neither spoke, nor moved. One thought rang through Elros's mind: _I'm in trouble._

But Maedhros did not shout, or scold, or do anything to make Elros think that he was in trouble. He merely nodded, laying his fork down on his plate. "Well come inside."

Slowly, still wide-eyed, Elros slipped through the door, creeping slowly up towards the table where Maedhros sat. He stood by the table, near an empty chair that sat to Maedhros's right, and did not approach any closer than that. The tall, red-haired Elf, ate a little more, but then he looked down, and looked at him. "Well, Elros?" he asked quietly.

Elros blinked at him, stunned despite himself; it was a rare person indeed who could tell him and Elrond apart despite having barely interacted with either of them before. Elros would tell anyone and everyone all he liked that he and Elrond weren't identical, that they _really _didn't look that much alike, there was pretty much no one who could tell them apart without getting to know them first. But Maedhros hadn't seen him and Elrond together since they'd arrived at Amon Ereb.

Maedhros's lip twitched, and if his hadn't been such a grim, shadowed face, Elros would have sworn that he was smiling. "I have some experience with differentiating between twins." Elros wasn't sure what differentiating meant, but he supposed it meant that Maedhros was good at telling twins apart; so much the better. Maedhros crooked a finger at him. "Come sit down, if you're going to stare at me."

The chairs were very tall for such a small child, and it took some doing, but eventually Elros clambered up onto the chair, and got a good look at the surface of the table. There was a neat stack of papers at the far right-hand corner, right in front of him. There were scribbles written on it, probably some language, though Elros didn't know what. But what was really drawing his attention was the smell of food emanating from Maedhros's plate.

Warm bread and cuts of heavily-salted venison it was, a simple meal to be sure, but Elros was hungry, and his stomach growled loudly at the aroma of meat. He looked at Maedhros, and at the plate. He looked at Maedhros again, and, careful to keep his gaze firmly fixed _on _Maedhros, Elros snagged a bit of venison off of the plate and popped it in his mouth. He chewed as quietly as he could, and sopped his rather sticky fingers equally quietly.

He could have sworn he saw Maedhros smirk.

They went on like this for several minutes, Elros occasionally sneaking tiny bits of venison off of Maedhros's plate, and Maedhros pretending not to notice. Eventually, however, Elros began to notice something odd. He looked at the plate and frowned when he realized that the venison was already cut up into tiny pieces. Elros well-remembered what Glessil would say to him in Sirion about that, that only small children who couldn't be trusted with knives had their meat already cut up for them when they ate. But Maedhros wasn't a small child who couldn't be trusted not to hurt himself if given a knife to use. So why this?

_He _does _only have one hand, _Elros mused. _Maybe that's why._

_May as well ask him._

"Erm… Maedhros?"

"Yes?"

"Why is all of your meat cut up into little pieces?"

Maedhros visibly stiffened at that, and Elros started to get the impression that if he wasn't already in trouble, he would be soon enough, but at that very moment, quite improbably, there came a shout from the doorway.

"Elros!"

Elrond and Maglor stood in the doorway, one openly shocked, the other no less so but for different reasons. Elrond's face went bright pink at the sight of him—never a good sign, Elros knew, and given how adamant Elrond was about avoiding their "caretakers" it was surprising that he'd apparently enlisted Maglor's aid in looking for him.

Well, maybe things changed.

The two wasted no time in crossing the room. Elrond immediately started trying to tug Elros out of his seat, much to Elros's annoyance. Meanwhile, Maglor was speaking to his brother. "I hope you weren't too bothered," he said in an oddly neutral tone.

"Not at all," Maedhros replied succinctly, clearly trying to ignore that neutral tone.

Then, Maglor leaned over, and pulled the loaf of bread from Maedhros's plate.

_This _got a reaction. "Stop that!" Maedhros exclaimed, reaching to swat at Maglor's hand. Maglor let out a rather high-pitched giggle and tore a piece of bread off of the loaf, before depositing the rest of it back on his brother's plate and eating what he'd gotten. Maedhros glared up at him, and Maglor seemed quite unconcerned.

Elros stared. Judging from the fact that he'd stopped tugging on him, it seemed that Elrond was staring too.

Finally, Maglor realized that he was being stared at, and began to usher both of them out of the room. "Come on, I'm sure you're both hungry. There should be warm food in the kitchens still."

Elros could get behind that. For all the meat he'd taken off of Maedhros's plate, it wasn't very filling, and he was still quite hungry.

And it probably wasn't a good idea to press too far with Maedhros, anyways.

-0-0-0-

It was two hours past supper.

That meant that Elrond and Elros were being put down for bed, having been thoroughly scrubbed by a taciturn maidservant despite the fact that they'd not gone outside at all that day and that they _could _bathe themselves, so they loudly insisted. All the same, the Nandorin maidservant, Merwen by name, insisted that they needed to be bathed, and that she would be the one to do it.

However, Elrond didn't say anything rude to her, and made sure that Elros didn't either. Mama said that they needed to be polite to servants, and he'd listen to Mama, even if she… Even if she was 'gone.'

"Alright little ones, it's nearly time for you to go to bed."

Looking rather tired himself, Maglor checked the two of them over, asking them if their faces were properly clean and if they were still hungry. The answer was 'yes' in Elrond's case, but he forbore to say so. He wasn't all that hungry. And he still wasn't sure if it was a good idea to make demands on his "caretaker".

But suddenly, sitting up in bed, he found himself making another sort of demand anyways.

"Maglor?" Maglor's pale eyes were suddenly on him, and Elrond felt his face grow hot. "I was wondering… Could you read to us?" He did not say why; he did not want to say that he missed when Glessil or Erestor would read to them, because they were probably both dead, and he didn't want to think about the fact that they were both dead. "It's just that, we can't really read…"

Elros nodded vigorously, eager for a story, and Maglor smiled a twitching smile. "Alright. I think we do have _some _books here that would have stories to interest young boys. I'll be back in a minute with one." He turned his gaze back to Elrond. There was something there in his eyes, something hesitant and oddly child-like, and Elrond was left reminded of the moment, earlier that day, when Maglor had promised him that he and Elros were safe here. There had been the same look on his face then. And Elrond found that he had believed him then, and still did. "And if you want to learn how to read, I can teach you."

Slowly, Elrond nodded. That didn't sound like it would be so bad.

* * *

Kano—Maglor

Rána—The name given by the Noldor for the Moon  
Vása—The name given by the Noldor for the Sun  
Nér—man (plural: neri)


End file.
